John McCain

It hasn't even been 24 hours since Republican Presidential candidate John McCain's speech in St. Paul and already a tribute site has been created to the protesters who disrupted him on stage.

The site, The Ground Noise and the Static, derives its name from the response Mr. McCain offered to supporters after members of the anti-war group Code Pink heckled him onstage:

My friends, my dear friends ... Please, please don't be diverted by the ground noise and the static. I'm going to talk about it some more, but Americans want us to stop yelling at each other.

Another McCain heckler, Adam Koresh, was interviewed by The American Prospect's Dana Goldstein.

Lacking McCain's own compelling personality and affecting presence, his convention speech would have been an utter disaster. His staff owed him a better text and a better stage.  Repeating the same old material that has been recycled so often this past week and over the past ten years does not create a convincing image of change. Or so I argue here.

ST. PAUL—Here's Sean Hannity, Fox newscaster and conservative hero, signing autographs on the floor of the convention as though he'd just won the nomination.

"Where in Alabama, darlin? What's your name darlin? Destiny? Your destiny is in politics."

"Where you from? I'm from Santa Barbara. High five."

Guards told the crowd to "back up. Back up. Ma'am don't push."

He was interviewed by a woman from KGMB Channel 9 Hawaii.

"If I have one word for Sarah Palin, it is 'authentic.' I love Hawaii. I can't wait to get back. Aloha," he said.

"Sean, you are a great American," said one man.

"No, you are a great American," said Hannity.  read more »

Eight years ago, when he first sought the presidency, John McCain presented himself to the country much the way he is presenting himself now—as a battle-scarred American hero who had endured unspeakable physical and mental abuse for his country and who had emerged from it to pursue a life of courageous and principled public service.

Only back then, the Republican establishment, which just spent the last three nights in St. Paul feting him as living shrine to all that is righteous and noble about this country, didn't see him in such glowing terms. They called him a Democratic plant, challenged his heroism narrative, and rallied around—like their lives depended on it—a well-connected son of privilege who had shown exactly zero interest in serving his country in Vietnam, preferring the comparative light-lift of the Texas National Guard.  read more »

ST. PAUL—Eight years after he first ran for president, Senator John McCain of Arizona accepted his party’s nomination tonight with a speech that touched necessary bases, but was considerably less well received than the one his vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, delivered the night before.

The speech was short on applause lines, and the early inconvenience of a protester in the rafters booing with a “McCain Votes Against Vets” sign in his hands didn’t help. Nor did the response of “U.S.A., U.S.A.” from the crowd, an attempt to drown out the heckling. McCain even seemed bothered when people applauded at his mention of their home states as he told the sad personal stories of victims of economic circumstances and a casualty of war.  read more »

Last night Mike Huckabee thanked the “elite media” for unifying the Republican Party behind the McCain-Palin ticket.

“I wasn’t sure it could be done,” he said, drawing happy laughter from the crowd.

There were "boos" directed at the press stand last night, and a few more attacks before it was time to file. The media were sitting right there, in plain view, half of them in a section to the immediate right of the stage and all the rest on the left. Arranged by affiliation, they sat quietly in their assigned seats, typing on their laptops with their little hands. The New York Times reporters sat in one row, The Washington Post in another, and so forth; instead of individual desks, each of these was equipped with a long, black surface that resembled nothing so much as a trough.  read more »

In two separate speeches yesterday, Rudy Giuliani lauded the virtues of Sarah Palin’s small-town executive experience.

During an address to the New York delegation at the Marriott hotel in Minneapolis, he said “Sorry Senator [Obama], if the city is not big enough for you--they are probably that group of people who cling to religion and guns.”

And during his keynote address to introduce Sarah Palin at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul later that evening, he said “I’m sorry Barack Obama doesn’t feel her hometown is,” he paused, “cosmopolitan enough.”

But during his own run for president, the size of the city apparently mattered to Giuliani.  read more »

Yesterday, Republicans, seemingly at once, started attacking Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer.

"What in God's name is a community organizer?" asked George Pataki at a breakfast.

"What do they do?" Giuliani implored during his speech last night.

And Sarah Palin, in her enthusiastic address, said, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

So community organizers are now organizing themselves.

John Raskin of the West Side of Manhattan, founder of Community Organizers of America, has already launched a Web site (Community Organizers Fight Back) demanding that Palin apologize.

Of course, they're not exactly the target demographic for Republicans, especially in New York.  read more »

Former Life Magazine managing editor Bill Shapiro sent the above cover of the magazine from September 2004 (left) to Jim Romenesko's blog as a nod to Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom many have noted resembles Tina Fey.

Media Mob was just struck by how similar Ms. Fey's pose is to the most recent cover of Rolling Stone (right), which features the 30 Rock star along with Chris Rock and David Letterman.

Ad libbing as he warmed up the Republican convention crowd for their vice presidential nominee, Rudolph Giuliani quipped: “She got an 80 percent approval rating. You don’t get those kinds of numbers in New York!”

Of course, getting those numbers would be just as easy for a New York mayor or any other mayor or governor if they were able – like the charming hockey mom -- to send $1200 to every man, woman and child in their jurisdiction thanks to a windfall profits tax on the oil industry.

But wait a second. Didn’t Rudy tell us that she had reduced taxes and cut government spending?

Actually, for all her boilerplate conservative rhetoric about the wonders of freedom and the evils of taxation and government, her career reflects a penchant for raising taxes and redistributing wealth.  read more »

Before tonight's proceedings in St. Paul, the venerable National Journal released its latest poll of Republican "insiders," in which several dozen party establishment figures were asked -- with a guarantee of anonymity -- to handicap the 2012 G.O.P. presidential field (contingent on a John McCain defeat this fall).

Their consensus: Mitt Romney is the runaway front-runner, favored by 55 percent, with "nobody" finishing a distant second, at 15 percent. For a party that is fond of anointing an heir apparent years in advance of its nominating contests -- and then ratifying that selection through the primary process -- Romney seemed to be in a commanding situation, roughly where Ronald Reagan was in 1976, George H.  read more »

Andrew Rice writes up a fairly grim appearance by Joe Lieberman at a Council on Foreign Relations forum.

MINNEAPOLIS—Senator Joe Lieberman sat on an auditorium stage, surrounded by Republicans, and beamed like a satisfied heretic.

It was less than 24 hours since the former Democrat’s convention speech in praise of his friend John McCain, and Lieberman was speaking as part of a panel discussion on the prospective McCain administration’s hypothetical foreign policy. The room was packed full of journalists, Republican officials and internationalist types, eager to hear from a man who has largely ostracized himself from his colleagues on Capitol Hill. Three other McCain advisors were sitting onstage, but it was Lieberman—whom Barack Obama endorsed just two years ago, when he faced a primary challenge—who volubly took the lead in criticizing the Democratic candidate, whom he described as unprepared to lead the country through a Manichaean global struggle.  read more »

ST. PAUL—Last night, Ron Paul bathed in the adoration of thousands of people who don’t like taxes but love their pocket-sized constitutions at an alternative convention thrown in his honor in Minneapolis.

This afternoon, it was back to reality.

“I’m not likely to get much recognition in there,” said Paul as he walked out of security gates at the Xcel Energy Center, where the Republican National Convention is being held. He had gone in for an interview with CNN.

Since the Republicans still want nothing to do with him, and won’t let him speak, he had no more business there.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he added.  read more »

The main strategic knock on the last night's primetime G.O.P. convention session was its decided lack of red meat-attacks on Barack Obama. Instead, the evening was given over to building John McCain's biography and to framing his campaign as a principled crusade that rises above partisan politics.

Good enough, but with Sarah Palin slated to speak tonight and John McCain on tap for tomorrow night, when will the Republicans showcase the kind of bare-knuckled (and highly effective) attacks on Obama that they directed at John Kerry in New York four years ago?

A look at tonight's schedule and the some of the speech excerpts pre-released this afternoon suggests they will try to kill two birds with one stone this evening.  read more »

Since her selection as John McCain's running-mate was announced last Friday, the media has been "on a mission to destroy" Sarah Palin. That's the charge from McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt, at least, and it's just one of countless over-the-top characterizations from the McCain campaign and its surrogates of the scrutiny Palin has encountered.

On one level, this is standard fare for a Republican nominee. Ever since Richard Nixon framed his candidacy and his presidency as havens for a "silent majority" of Americans who felt condescended to by media elites, press-bashing has been a staple of the G.O.P. playbook, a way to rally the party base against a common enemy and to convince G.  read more »

Sarah Palin may or may not have been the right choice for him, but at least John McCain must be feeling good today about his decision to pass on Mitt Romney as his running-mate.

Romney badly wanted the spot and devoted the last six months—after dropping out of the presidential race in February—to pursuing it, using countless television and radio appearances to trash Barack Obama and herald McCain as an unusually capable, qualified and principled leader.

This posture marked an abrupt shift from his G.O.P. primary strategy (in which he positioned himself as the true conservative and attacked McCain—relentlessly—as a heretic whose nomination would destroy the soul of the party) so much that it prompted a reasonable question: Was Romney interested in helping McCain win in 2008, or just in positioning himself to run again in 2012?

The  read more »

MINNEAPOLIS—In what may be a preview of his keynote speech tonight to the Republican National Convention, Rudy Giuliani spoke to the New York Republican delegation at a downtown Marriott this afternoon and attacked Barack Obama on matters of national security and experience.

“At the top of the ticket they have someone who is the least experienced candidate for president in 100 years,” said Giuliani.

Speaking about the war in Iraq and the surge, he said, “I can’t figure out for the life of me how the Democrats think it’s a mistake.” He suggested that the Democrats supported dictatorships.

“Do they want Saddam Hussein back?” he asked.  read more »

ST. PAUL--Conveniently enough, Clinton-strategist-turned-Fox-pundit Howard Wolfson was around to provide a quick response to Carly Fiorina's assertion that while Hillary Clinton was a victim of sexism in her primary loss to Obama -- a line that McCain surrogates have pushed enthusiastically since the end of the primaries -- she had not been a target of sexism from the Republican Party.

"That's absolutely ridiculous," he said. "The Republican outrage over sexist attacks on Sarah Palin would have more legitimacy if they admitted their sexist attacks on Hillary Clinton."

ST. PAUL--In the minutes before a group of prominent Republican women held a "Republicans Strongly Defend Governor Palin's Executive Experience" press conference at the RiverCentre this morning, a television tuned to FOX News showed John McCain disembarking from his campaign plane and greeting Sarah Palin and her family on the tarmac.

Palin waited on a greeting line for McCain by the plane's steps. She smiled a broad smile and wore a beige skirt and jacket. McCain hugged her several times. Her 17-year-old daughter Bristol, whose pregnancy has prompted a tabloid media storm and also more serious questions about the intensity with which the McCain campaign vetted her mother, stood to Palin's right.  read more »

Republicans hate nothing more than nosy, enterprising reporters who dismiss whatever piffle the party bosses hand out and insist on…well, reporting. Yesterday Steve Schmidt whined piteously to Howie Kurtz about the “frenzied” coverage of Sarah Palin, as journalists around the country attempt to discover who she is and what she has done (besides hunt and fish) before she gets any closer to running what is still the world’s most powerful government.

Having failed to vet her properly, Schmidt deeply resents the reporters who are now trying to perform the task that he and his posse punted. But somebody has to do it, and it does get messy – especially when the presidential nominee picks a politician whose brief resume features her service as mayor of a town with a population under 15,000.  read more »

This afternoon, Bronx Borough President and city comptroller candidate Adolfo Carrion will speak at a panel about Latino voters here in the Twin Cities.

An email to reporters from Carrion's office says he'll be "available to media throughout the convention."

Yesterday, Al Sharpton spoke at a panel about education--any other from New York Democrats here?

Here’s the advisory:

NALEO TO BRIEF RNC ON LATINO ELECTORATE AND 2008
VOTER MOBILIZATION EFFORTS
Analysis Highlights Growing Latino Political Influence as New Census Data Shows Nearly
One in Three Americans Will Be Hispanic by 2050

MINNEAPOLIS, MN -The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund (NALEO), the nation's premiere Latino leadership organization, announced today that it will brief participants at the Republican National Convention on the growing Latino electorate and its likely impact in Election 2008.  read more »

Since John McCain sewed up the Republican nomination, it's been obvious that Joe Lieberman - his constant campaign traveling companion and one of his closest personal friends and political allies - would address the G.O.P. convention. What wasn't so obvious was which Joe would show up.

The answer hinged on the outcome of McCain's vice-presidential search. Probably from the beginning, McCain was inclined to tap Lieberman - and as the end of the process approached, it became clear that that's where his heart was.

If McCain had followed through on that instinct, then Lieberman would have shown up in St. Paul ready to spew red meat.  read more »

The last speaker of the second night of the Republican National Convention was former Democrat Joe Lieberman. He was also the first speaker tonight to utter the words Barack Obama. He did not do so admiringly.

Throughout his remarks, he contrasted Obama negatively with John McCain and even with Bill Clinton.  

Asked how he thought the speech went as he left the Xcel center, Lieberman told the Observer "I believe it went well."  

Here are his remarks as prepared.

Thank you for that warm welcome. I am honored to be here.

We meet tonight in the wake of a terrible storm that has hit the Gulf Coast but that hurts all of us, because we are all members of our larger American family.

 read more »

For a long time tonight, the Republicans appeared to be stalling.

Two hours into the second day of the Republican National Convention, there has been only the slightest whiff of an attack on Barack Obama, whose name has not been mentioned once. Tonight was supposed to feature Rudy Giuliani and the danger of ceding the White House to the Democrats. But instead of a sustained consistent message to build up John McCain or to tear down Obama, the Republicans have offered Jo Ann Davidson, chairman of the RNC Committee on Arrangements, who called Sarah Palin, the presumptive vice presidential nominee, Sarah Pawlenty. Two members of Congress spoke, one about the do nothing Congress, another about how nice people in Minnesota are.  read more »

ST. PAUL—“Nice place out here,” said Rudy Giuliani.

The former mayor and his wife, Judith, had just arrived at a private party—re-purposed as a benefit for Hurricane Gustav relief—thrown in his honor on the terrace of an upscale restaurant in downtown Minnesota a few hours after the opening of the Republican National Convention.

Waitresses in thigh-baring skirts passed around buckets of Möet and trays of chocolate to senators and congressmen and supporters, who lounged on red-cushioned couches, unwrapped their complimentary cigar clippers and admired the view of the city’s bustling Hennepin Avenue. Mr. Giuliani’s longtime security detail and his usual coterie of former deputy mayors, including Peter Powers and Tony  read more »

Families deserve privacy about family matters, but families that want absolute privacy should probably stay out of politics. Sooner or later someone would have noticed the pregnancy of Bristol Palin, 17-year-old daughter of John McCain’s vice presidential pick, especially since everyone in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, seemed to know already. The question that remains is what, if anything, her plight may portend for the rest of us.

With all due respect to this young woman, her future husband and the rest of the family—and best wishes to all of them for a successful birth—let us first stop pretending that this is good news.  read more »

John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate is historic and intriguing. She certainly is not one of the usual suspects chosen by and for Beltway insiders. Her background, her personality and her personal narrative figure to add new twists and turns to the fall campaign.

While Governor Palin may bring some hitherto forgotten constituencies to the Republican table—hockey moms, salmon fishers—her presence on the ticket suggests that Mr. McCain and his party have written off the Northeast. That would be a foolish mistake.

You wouldn’t know it by Republican’s westward-leaning ticket, but some of the party’s best-known figures live far from the great open spaces beyond the Mississippi River.  read more »

Why on earth is George W. Bush speaking to the Republican convention tonight? When Hurricane Gustav prompted John McCain to cancel the opening night festivities in St. Paul, it seemed that he’d engineered an enviable political maneuver: coming up with a justifiable excuse to keep the deeply unpopular president – to whom Democrats are frantically trying to link McCain – away from his convention.

Even Republicans happily admitted to being relieved that Bush wouldn’t be participating.

"It's a good thing," Dick Zimmer, the former New Jersey congressman who is mounting an uphill battle against Senator Frank Lautenberg, told the Los Angeles Times. “The first thing I was asked when I won the primary was whether I planned to ask President Bush to come to New Jersey to campaign for me.  read more »

One week ago, just a couple of days into the Democratic National Convention, a number of media outlets declared that Barack Obama had failed to receive a bounce from his selection of Joe Biden and from his convention.

But bounces don't usually happen overnight; they take a few days to develop, especially when a V.P. candidate who was previously unknown to most Americans is involved. So it wasn't exactly surprising when Obama's numbers began ticking up over the last two days of the convention. After his and Biden's acceptance speeches, Gallup's tracking poll showed the Democrats ahead by eight points - easily Obama's best standing in Gallup's poll since clinching the Democratic nomination in June.  read more »

Alright, alright, so we know you’re asking yourself, “So how does Sammy Hagar fit into this whole Sarah Palin fiasco.” Well, wonder no longer. The McCain camp used Van Halen’s Hallmark-worthy anthem “Right Now” to cap off Friday’s surprise announcement in Dayton, Ohio, of Palin’s vice-presidential candidacy. Unfortunately, McCain didn’t vet the song any better than Palin herself. Van Halen’s management quickly issued a statement denouncing the song’s use. "Permission was not sought or granted nor would it have been given, " it said. Even though the same song was used for Bush’s 2004 campaign, the band’s handlers claim, “They're not political, they're just rock and roll." What, “Hot for Teacher” wasn’t a prescient critique of decling teacher salaries?  read more »

ST. PAUL—John McCain confidant Charlie Black told a private reception of conservative leaders Monday evening that in his first-ever nonpolitical conversation with the candidate earlier that day, McCain asked him to help solicit donations for the victims of Hurricane Gustav.

“I deliver that message and hope for the best,” Black told the crowd, eating vegetables and wearing pro-life buttons in the atrium of the Hilton Garden Inn. “He always puts his country first."

In keeping with the Republicans' decision to scale back their activities and political rhetoric, Black kept his public remarks focused on the Gulf states and led a prayer asking for the protection of the people who live there.  read more »

ST. PAUL—With much fanfare, this evening’s session of the Republican National Convention was turned into a fundraiser for hurricane relief. Laura Bush and Cindy McCain appeared onstage beneath a video screen that projected a web address, www.causegreater.com, which was set up by the McCain campaign. Visitors to the web site, as well as delegates in the hall and viewers on television, were redirected a charity called The Aidmatrix Foundation, along with several statewide organizations, some of which were likewise affiliated with Aidmatrix.

What is the Aidmatrix Foundation? On Fox News, correspondent Bret Baier referred to it as “eBay for charitable contributions.  read more »

ST. PAUL—Word that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant was easily the biggest bit of non-Gustav-related news to emerge from the opening day of the Republican convention.

It’s doubtful that this revelation will end up hurting the G.O.P. ticket in the fall—Ms. Palin’s statement made it clear that her daughter plans to keep the child and marry the father, the least politically explosive denouement for such a dicey situation—but it nonetheless seems to confirm a widespread suspicion: Ms. Palin was not thoroughly vetted by John McCain’s team.

Otherwise, this news would not be leaking on the convention’s opening day.  read more »

Eighteen-year-old McCain delegate Spencer Rice of Onondaga County doesn't "approve" of Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter having a child, but doesn't think it should affect the campaign.

“I’m hoping it never happens to me,” he said.

ST. PAUL—Here’s Representative Peter King on the floor of the Xcel Energy Center a few minutes ago, saying the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter “can’t be an issue in the campaign.”

“There’s not a family in America that who’s had a teenage daughter or a teenage son who hasn’t worried about this, thought about this," he said. "To me, the only test, the only question, is how the family reacted.”

My old friend Sidney Blumenthal, whose Republican friends sometimes tell him more than they should, has an intriguing
] post up at Arianna's place. Sid says Mc Cain's choice of Palin was motivated largely by continued feuding with Karl Rove. Which speaks well of McCain, I suppose, but is still a poor way to pick a vice president. McCain wanted Lieberman but Karl had hi own ideas. Read it.
Joe Conason

When Hurricane Katrina came ashore three years ago, initial reports suggested that it had made its way past New Orleans without causing the destruction some had feared. But the storm's aftermath proved unexpectedly catastrophic, with levees unable to hold back the rising waters.

It's worth keeping that example in mind this afternoon, with Hurricane Gustav, downgraded from a Category 3 storm (Katrina's designation) to Category 2 before it came ashore, passing west of New Orleans. It seems possible that the dire forecasts of the weekend – talk of flooding of "biblical" proportions that would wipe out whatever Katrina hadn't – will not be realized.  read more »

Sarah and Todd Palin have confirmed a report by Reuters that their 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant.

Here's a statement released by the McCain campaign a few moments ago:

"We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.  read more »

MINNEAPOLIS—The New York director of John McCain's campaign, Ed Cox, was the featured speaker at the state delegation breakfast at the Marriott hotel this morning.

He acknowledged that the focus of the convention has shifted in response to Hurricane Gustav, but added that McCain was in a position to handle the potential disaster, as well as other national and international issues, in large part because he faced combat while serving in the field.

According to one reporter's count, Cox mentioned September 11 six times.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Cox said, "You run things in the military," Cox said. When asked about the September 11 references, he said, "Some things you do not forget.  read more »

Republican consultant Rick Wilson said that several lobbyists and Republican activists he knows are, like him, delaying their trip to St. Paul until a clearer picture of the Republican National Convention takes shape.

Wilson, who has only missed one other convention since 1988, (he skipped 1996) said he understood why the McCain people scaled back the convention schedule, and agrees with them that it would look very bad to have people partying in the streets while floodwaters washed over New Orleans.

“The best policy is the best politics in this case,” he said.

Another concern that Wilson has heard is that many lobbyists who hoped to catch the ear or eye of McCain campaign officials won’t be able to even if they do attend the convention, because the heavy hitters will be with McCain in the Gulf.

Former Bush pioneer and Republican fund-raiser Barron Thomas says that the usually luxurious parties at the Republican National Convention “are severely on hold” as attention seems to be turning towards fund-raising for potential victims of Hurricane Gustav.

“I think the idea is to send a lot of that money down to New Orleans,” said Thomas, who is set to arrive later in the week.

On the positive side, Thomas, an Arizona fund-raiser who has been critical of John McCain in the past and was a strong supporter of Rudy Giuliani, said that his phone has not stopped ringing since the announcement of Sarah Palin as McCain’s choice for Vice President.  read more »